Some China January PX contracts settled at $1,584/tonne

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Some paraxylene (PX) January contracts in ?xml:namespace>China were heard settled against ICIS average spot quotes of $1,584/tonne (€1,204/tonne) on Monday.

A Middle East-based PX producer was heard to have settled its contract with a south China purified terephthalic acid (PTA) maker at the weekly average of ICIS published quotes in January, which are on a cost and freight (CFR) Taiwan and/or China Main Port (CMP).

Other January contracts were heard settled at $1,581.37/tonne CFR, market sources said.

Regional PX-PTA players are turning towards published spot CFR quotes for contract conclusion because of a lack of a major settlement in the January Asian Contract Price (ACP) mechanism.

The industry at large typically benchmarks and settles contracts off a concluded price between two major PX makers, including ExxonMobil, JX Nippon Oil & Energy, Idemitsu Kosan and S-Oil, and two major PX end-users, including Mitsubishi Chemical, Mitsui Chemical, BP, China American Petrochemical Co (CAPCO), Oriental Petrochemical (Taiwan) and Zhejiang Yisheng Petrochemical.

ExxonMobil settled its January PX contract price with major end-users at $1,445/tonne CFR Asia on 28 December.

Other major producers such as JX Nippon Oil & Energy, S-Oil and Idemitsu Kosan declared price disagreements on their respective contract prices, after failing to conclude negotiations with their customers. They will be settling contracts against published spot CFR quotes for the calendar month of January.